Forty high school students from throughout the country are gathered in Washington, D.C., as finalists in the Intel Science Talent Search , America’s oldest high school science competition. Among the finalists is 18-year-old Jefferson City residents Evan Mirts who attends Jefferson City High School.

To get as far as they have, these students submitted scientific projects dealing with such things as the development of new computer programs, cracking mathematical codes, research on plants.

The top prize is $100,000, with the awards to be handed out at a banquet Tuesday evening. As a finalist from among the thousands of students who entered, Evan has already earned $5,000 in scholarship money and a new laptop. His project, by the way, had him observing changes in volume and surface area of spinach chloroplasts using a scanning ion conductance microscope.

Evan hopes to attend Washington University in St. Louis or Truman State University.

Download/Listen: Steve Walsh interviews Evan Mirts (9:30 MP3)
Download/Listen: Steve Walsh report (:60 MP3)